You are Not Guilty of Your Feelings

by Kathy Krajco

If you point out that people cannot control their feelings and that they therefore cannot change them and that feelings therefore cannot be a sin or a character flaw of any sort, you always get some holier-than-thou coming back with "Yes but... feeling angry (or whatever) is a sin."

What can one do to get through a three-foot-thick forehead? It is impervious to reason. Reason just bounces off it like that, because such people have no respect for it.

Never feel guilty about your feelings!

Woops, an oxymoron. You don't feel guilty about your feelings; you feel ashamed of them. That is because shame has nothing to do with guilt. Shame is something others put on you. Whether you deserve it or not.

So, never be ashamed of your feelings! There is no guilt in them. Anyone who judges you for your feelings is the one doing something to be ashamed of.

I say this also to narcissists. Narcissists, you have abnormal feelings, but they are not your fault. They are an effect of the disease. Victims, you have normal feelings, and they are not your fault. They are an effect of the abuse.

Aside to those who think what I say conflicts with religion: Think again. Look it up. Abraham finds that God judges by CONDUCT. Conduct is words and deeds. Feelings are not conduct.

And the word "faith" in that book means what it used to mean = what we now mean by "good faith" = simple honesty, sincerity, fidelity to truth and one's word = something even an atheist can have. Only within the last few hundred years has abuse and misuse of the word faith warped it into meaning a "list of religious beliefs." Indeed, when you compare various versions of scripture to see how many way a given passage may be translated, you start to see how misleading current translations can be.

Emotions are just psychological feelings. Like physical feelings they are triggered by stimuli. We have no control over this process. If you touch a hot stove, you feel burnt. If you get put down, you feel insulted. The stimulus is the cause. So, it makes no more sense to blame you for how a narcissist's abuse makes you feel than it does to blame you for smarting when he or she punches you in the nose.

I just don't see what's so hard to understand about that.

This doesn't give the victims a carte blanche to go off and react to abuse in any way they want. Indeed, the narcissist's abnormal feelings are no excuse for his conduct, either.

We must all make sure our emotions don't control our conduct. We must temper it with good judgment and moderation.

When there would be no witnesses, narcissists don't. That's where they incur guilt.

True, injured feelings are more easily hurt. Just as a wound is more sensitive than uninjured skin. So, the victims of narcissists must realize this. Get away from the source of constant re-injury, and you won't find that your feelings get easily hurt anymore. And your anger (emotional pain) will eventually pass.

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